Don't mention the war: a response to Reeves and McIvor on the early career of Clement Attlee

Basil Fawlty is invoked in the title of this article because, just as the hotelier in the 1970s television sitcom was embarrassed by the presence of Germans in his hotel, so it is suggested that the absence of the military element from the account of Attlee's early career provided by Reeves and McIvor (and also by Cruddas, 2011) may be explained by a sense of unease or embarrassment at Attlee's martial patriotism. [...]Reeves and McIvor do pick out a very interesting phrase from Attlee's textbook, when in discussing the work of local boards of trade Attlee discusses 'local patriotism' (Attlee, 1920, in Reeves and McIvor, 2014, 52).